Nvidia launches cheap Quadro

Nvidia has announced a new addition to its professional Quadro series, the low profile Quadro FX 380 LP.

At just $169, the tiny 380 is one of the cheapest Quadros ever
launched. Nvidia claims the card is optimized for AutoCAD and certified
for 3ds MAX and other Autodesk software.

Of course, it is a DirectX 10 card with Shader Model 4.1 and it has
512MB of DDR3 and 16 CUDA cores, or shaders, so it's not exactly a very
powerful solution. However, it features DVI and DisplayPort and it
should be a rather good choice for designers on a budget or hobby users.

Power consumption is rated at just 28W, so we're really not sure why Nvidia opted for a fan instead of a passive heatsink.